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A South Korean's Rise to Free Market Evangelist

It was a long journey for You Jong Keun from the dirt-floor hut where he grew up in a Korean mountain village to his office as an economics professor at Rutgers University.

But Mr. You's return voyage, since he gave up his American citizenship and went back to South Korea in 1994, has perhaps spanned an even greater distance. He has gone from teaching in a classroom to trying to rescue the South Korean economy.

Mr. You, 53, is chief economic adviser to Kim Dae Jung, South Korea's President-elect, and his presence in Mr. Kim's inner circle has been enormously reassuring to foreign bankers and Western officials. A fervent evangelist for free markets and foreign investment, Mr. You insists that South Korea must open itself up to the world not just because the International Monetary Fund says so, but because that is the only way for the nation to thrive.

''Toward the end of the 19th century, our ancestors tried to isolate ourselves, and the consequences were ruinous,'' he said, referring to Korea's refusal to open up, enabling a modernizing Japan to force itself on Korea and colonize it.

When Mr. Kim was elected in December, the stock market plunged on concern that he was a populist who would pander to labor unions. Some experts worried that Mr. Kim would tackle South Korea's economic crisis with first-rate loyalists and third-rate economists.

But Mr. Kim has in fact surrounded himself with a core of advisers who, like Mr. You, are widely respected and in many cases trained in America. Since the election, following the advice of Mr. You and the others, Mr. Kim has repeatedly emphasized the need for mass layoffs and other painful steps, and the stock market is rising again.

''I think people should rest assured that Kim Dae Jung is totally committed to a free market economy,'' Mr. You said. During the campaign, Mr. Kim got some ''bad advice,'' Mr. You said, and Mr. You is credited with helping to persuade Mr. Kim to make tough pronouncements about the need for far-reaching restructuring.

Mr. You's own credentials as a fan of markets are clear, for he is also the elected Governor of North Cholla Province, one of the poorest and most backward regions of the country. If his efforts there are any indication of how South Korea may develop in the coming years, the nation is in for a tumultuous shake-up and an ardent welcome to foreign investment.

''At the time of his inauguration, everyone thought that he had almost no chance of fulfilling his dream of getting foreign investment,'' said Cho Sang Jin, a newspaper editor in North Cholla. ''But now, because of his wide contacts through his years in the U.S.A., he is accomplishing a lot of his objectives.''

North Cholla's exports are increasing faster by far than those of any other province in the country, and foreign tourism has tripled since Mr. You took office. One of those foreign visitors was Michael Jackson, the singer, whom Mr. You is wooing to invest in a resort and entertainment park in North Cholla.

In 25 years in the United States, Mr. You picked up not just contacts, but also a direct style that has antagonized some Koreans. And leftists criticize him as a traitor for his calls for layoffs and foreign investment.

Koh Sung Jae, president of the student council at Chonbuk University in North Cholla, accused Mr. You of giving away too many concessions to lure foreign investors.

''We don't approve of restructuring Korean businesses to the point where we have to cut out our livers and hand them over to foreign businesses,'' Mr. Koh said.

Mr. You's policies are striking because South Korea remains wary of foreign investment. A poll last year indicated that only 4 percent of Koreans thought that foreigners should definitely be allowed to own small shops or restaurants, and even fewer approved of allowing foreigners to own land or large factories.

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''Two of the messages I have been trying to tell people are that layoffs are essential and that there is no nationality of capital,'' said Mr. You, who acknowledged that he still sees himself as an educator, just with a larger classroom. ''When I took office as Governor, I tried my best to make myself available for special lectures, telling people that we have to open up our markets, we have to open up to foreign investment.''

Mr. You's odyssey began in a tiny mountain village where his father farmed in North Cholla. The village, of thatched-roof shacks with dirt floors, has since been abandoned because it is far from any road.

His father, who attended school up to the sixth grade, had the passionate belief in education that is common in South Korea, and he saw to it that Mr. You worked hard in school and eventually made it to university in Seoul. From there Mr. You went off to the State University of New York in Binghamton in 1970, to earn his doctorate in economics.

Mr. You taught at Rutgers and worked for a decade as an economist in the New Jersey Governor's office, writing a book about the regional economy. He married and raised a family and might have stayed in America if he had not gotten a phone call from his mother in 1978. She told him that his younger brother, a democracy campaigner, had been arrested by the dictatorship.

That led Mr. You to become active in the Korean democracy movement, and he became still more involved when Mr. Kim -- who is from South Cholla -- was sentenced to death by the Korean Government in 1980. In what turned out to be an excellent career move, Mr. You formed a ''Save Kim Dae Jung'' campaign in New Jersey.

Ultimately, Mr. Kim was spared and exiled to America in 1982, and the two men met and became close. After democracy returned to South Korea beginning in 1987, Mr. You became increasingly restless to return.

He made longer and longer visits to his homeland, and by his own account he neglected his family. His American wife was horrified by the idea of moving to Korea, and they divorced in 1992.

''I was not a very good husband -- not a very good father,'' Mr. You recalled. ''I feel very badly about that.''

Remarried to a Korean woman, Mr. You renounced his American citizenship and returned to South Korea in 1994. A year later, he ran for Governor of North Cholla.

In the end, helped by his relationship with Mr. Kim, Mr. You won by a whisker. To bring in fresh blood, Mr. You put help-wanted ads in Korean-language newspapers in the United States and recruited young scholars with fresh American Ph.D's.

Mr. You and his team have begun a dazzling series of economic projects in the province, often locking horns with the central Government in Seoul -- which responded last year by starting a corruption investigation into Mr. You's affairs. But there was never any evidence of wrongdoing, and Mr. You has become so popular in North Cholla that there were howls of protest that forced Seoul to back off.

''Governor You is a unique person,'' said Song Yong Nam, an economics professor in North Cholla. ''He is full of ideas that no one else had thought of.''

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A version of this article appears in print on January 25, 1998, on Page 1001010 of the National edition with the headline: A South Korean's Rise to Free Market Evangelist. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe